


Kenma's Curious Company

by jellyryans (ryankellycc)



Series: Ocean Outreach [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Day At The Beach, First Meetings, Fluff, Gen, Kenma wears hoodies to the beach in summer, Kind of Canon Compliant, M/M, Mermaid Hinata Shouyou, Merpeople, could be shippy could be gen, gratuitous botw mentions, kind of not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 09:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18775852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryankellycc/pseuds/jellyryans
Summary: Written forKurojirias part of the inauguralFantasyhaikyuumini exchange!Kenma is dragged to the beach for team bonding but the experience is not what he expected.





	Kenma's Curious Company

**Author's Note:**

> The theme was "Shipwrecked," featuring merfolk, and our pieces had to be under 1,050 words. We were matched with our exchange partners randomly, which was super exciting and interesting and meant I got to write for a pairing that I love but hadn't considered writing before. Kurojiri, hope you enjoy and thank you for requesting kenhina and being part of this experience!

Kenma didn’t have to walk long to find a place to sit. 

He lowered himself onto the smooth surface of a stone that straddled the boundary between the ocean and the shore and listened to the waves lap at his makeshift bench. He could barely hear the shouts of his teammates, surrounded by the other rocks that rose up from the sand and ensconced him in his own personal grotto.

For the first time since Lev had shown up at his door and aggressively reminded him of their plans, Kenma relaxed. He dug his Switch out of his hoodie and powered it on, feeling his shoulder tension melt as the title disappeared into a pulsating burst of light. 

He wasn’t in a rush to skip the opening cutscene. When people asked, he told them it was the mark of a good game, but that wasn’t always entirely true. Watching the intro he’d seen a dozen times before meant he knew what was going to happen and when. 

There were no surprises. 

He articulated the thought exactly one second before a loud splash of water hit the stone and cold water seeped into the sides of his gym shorts. 

Kenma froze, managing to keep the Switch steady, and peeked through the curtain of hair that had fallen around his face. 

Rivulets of salt water ran over the curves of bare, lean muscle of a human back, and, as more water pooled on the stone, the droplets left behind on the rosy skin danced with faded sepia freckles and reflected the summer sun like hundreds of miniature prisms. 

He considered screaming, or running away, but instead followed the bumps of person’s spine with his eyes toward their head of wild hair. It was already drying, sticking up every which way like the long fingers of an invisible hand were twirling the locks, and the curls were an impossibly rich orange, like the goldfish children would be scooping at Tanabata in a couple weeks. 

The irony of the thought went unappreciated as his eyes swept down the person’s back. 

Kenma blinked before glancing over his shoulder at the tail covered in twinkling scales of the same panoply of oranges that made up their hair. The tail twitched in the water, reminding him of his grandmother’s cat when she was riled up.

Tama-san was a cat, so she had a tail. That made sense. The person next to him wasn’t a fish, but they definitely had a tail. That didn’t make sense. 

He sucked in a breath, but the sound was lost in the creature’s excited chirruping. They gestured toward his Switch with normal, human fingers connected to one another with gauzy, distinctly nonhuman webbing. 

Kenma tore his eyes away from the creature as Link’s face appeared, but he could tell they were wiggling like an antsy kid, churning the water with their tail and chirping through the entire sequence.

He was wholly unprepared when the creature whipped their head around and caught his gaze. 

Large, very human, brown irises eyes peered at him with unbridled curiosity. The creature chirped and cocked their head, their unruly orange curls cascading with the movement. They pointed at the device again with an enthusiastic trill. 

It sounded like they’d just asked him a question and, for the first time in a long while, Kenma felt like answering. 

“I have to wait a minute to play.”

The creature seemed to understand, and, even more miraculously, they nodded and settled back on their elbows to stare at the screen intently. 

It was impossible for Kenma to look at the screen and his fingers moved by muscle memory over the controls while he watched the creature react. They gasped dramatically when he picked up the Sheikah Slate, started when he threw a barrel against a wall, and let out a high pitched shriek when Link got his well-worn trousers. 

Even though the fish person acted like watching him play Breath of the Wild was the coolest thing that had ever happened to them, they never crowded him, or invaded his personal space. 

A easy smile tugged at Kenma’s lips, as he moved the Switch slightly to the left, and then to the right, and huffed a quiet laugh as the fish person’s eyes followed the device like Tama-san’s would follow a feather cat teaser. 

Suddenly, the creature froze and, just as quickly as they had appeared, they slid back into the water. 

“Here you are smiling when we worried you’d wandered away for good.”

Kenma hardly had time to process the loss, and his smile had fallen completely by the time Kuroo was done talking. “I’m not that far,” he mumbled, looking down at Link, who was still shirtless.

“Come on, don’t give me that look. We’re about to eat.”

“I guess it was too much to ask that I miss watching you all shovel food into your mouths.”

“You’re telling me you’re not hungry?” Kuroo asked, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Am I ever?”

Kuroo’s head swayed in thought before he conceded. “Still, we’re supposed to be doing _some_ team bonding. And I don’t want to face Kozume-san’s wrath if you go home hungry.”

The prospect of seeing his mother’s face if his stomach rumbled was not a promising one for either of them, and the wet patch on the rock next to him was drying rapidly in the afternoon heat. Soon, there would be no evidence of it at all. 

“Fine.”

“What happened to your shorts?” Kuroo asked, eyeing the wet patch on the seat of Kenma’s shorts.

“I met a mermaid.” 

They stood in silence for a beat, staring at each other until Kuroo averted his eyes and shook his head. “You need to stop wearing hoodies when it’s this hot.” Kenma shrugged. “And you need to eat something.”

Kenma resisted the urge to roll his eyes and followed Kuroo as he led them out of the rocky shelter. His mind bounced between wondering how long it would take Tora to point out that it looked like he peed his pants and how he could ask Kuroo to take him back to the beach without inflating his ego and sending it soaring into space.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! And please browse the fantasyhaikyuu tumblr for art/fics and the collection here on ao3! I'm always so amazed by the talent and enthusiasm that comes out of these exchanges and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be a part of them. 
> 
> Also, for more cute kenhina action, you should def read [Bright](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18789505) because great minds think alike (apparently!!!) and I'm always a sucker for hinata merms and really cool fantasy magic AUs!!!!


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